This exercise for perception is not about focusing on particular qualities, but increasing the total output of perception altogether.

 I'm not sure about Vipassana exactly, but focusing on particular qualities to change how one perceives the nature of reality does not equate to increasing perception of reality regardless of its nature and in the process determining its nature nonetheless.

My problem with meditation with my current understanding is that whilst it can help one to perceive truth, the perception of truth is not accompanied by knowing that which is false. Genuine understanding is only achieved through knowing that which is false and the nature by which this falseness arrives, so that one can isolate truth.

Knowledge of truth through meditation is not gained through an assortment and arrangement of the facts, but through a change in one's state of consciousness which fails to provide the path by which ordinary consciousness can understand truth. Please feel totally free to disagree with me on this; I encourage the opportunity to develop understanding.

"Mind state and state of consciousness is literally visualizable, every aspect of it." Could you please clarify what you mean by this?

Also, do you think there are True qualities of reality? What should we even mean when we say 'quality'?

Can one see Ultimate Truth?

I currently understand truth to be only the absence of falsehood. I do not currently believe there can be another axiom from which other knowledge about truth can be derived. As a result of this, truth can only be known by identifying that which is false. What do you think of this?

Ni Nurta

What I always meant by this is we are bunch of single celled organisms which agreed to keep together and not let go. Our thinkin center brain creates consciousnesses which are just synchronized neurons - cells with ability to communicate with each-other well. How they do it is up to them really. If you have evolution proven way you are not gonna do too crazy stuff lightly - trying always ends with some kind of issues as anyone who did hard meditation can tell you

We neurons can agree that certain signals indicate we should restructure how this signaling is done and we should be able to follow directions. Imho all animals we use similar templates and especially mammals and especially humans (we are almost identical when it comes to some things) so if you know it you can literally reprogram your brain structurally. I have done it and reprogrammed affected by specific signaling parts of my higher brain (think in this specific case connections in white brain matter, not changing gray matter. tho there are ways to change it too) and did so to prove point to myself using what I could say someone else mind as template and overnight (maintenance period) changed from enlightened introvert to unenlightened jhana-less extrovert. Not claiming copying someone mind verbatim but merely being able to reprogram my mind. What I did was itself extremely stupid but I haven't read about it anywhere so I felt someone has to take one for the team... even if it kinda only serves to tickle my (re-configured) ego ;)

Rather ad hoc make arbitrary changes just because one can do it it is useful to reprogram brain bit by bit using visualized signaling as reference - there are signals which do not change markers on how connections flow naturally but loosen them and allow putting temporary markers. It is possible to make real-time changes in how neurons react within especially small clumps of neurons which are otherwise doing something else but borrowing them to make new consciousnesses isn't such a big deal. When you nail signaling there and it proves valid in things these neurons normally do mind is confident to move it elsewhere - to whole mind. And if that proves successful mind is more ready to reconfigure itself for good. If it knows how to program its markers for persistent mind states. Always abused this ability because it made everything so much easier. Practice was about nailing things in smaller consciousnesses without too much baggage for which I could allocate all the time during the day. Then I would not worry about having more tangible results. Just hitting right mind state for reconfiguration would trigger reconfiguration and there, changes 'attained'.

Mind states of people end up having at say 4th path (its point when person lowers learning rates in brain to lock 'attainment') are really combination of what they managed to visualize. If it is consciously instructing neurons knowing it is instructing neurons to change their markers or effects of doing practices doesn't change this whole mechanism. In fact people who are really thick headed when it comes to learning rates can spend deceased on cushion and have little to no changes in baseline mind configuration. This learning rate and experiences where you reconfigure mind can be figured out by experimentation. It has to be to make them easier to find to other people and even for ourselves to not forget it. Typically people do not mention these things because they just take these things are feeling of how practice feels like before major changes and do not put too much attention to these experiences/qualities.


The so called True with capital T qualities Buddha laid off for us are true and pragmatic but by itself neither completely true nor completely pragmatic.

Three Characteristics teachings were Buddha's attempt at leading people to Nibbana. They are as True as anti-3C I mentioned before are. It is really the same for all aspects of reality. Not to remove from wisdom of people who invented methods to attain what people attain with 3C imho what people think when they think Enlightenment before filling their mind with dogma (and most often even after) is more in-line with anti-3C. From what I can say e.g. Adwajta Vedanta monks are more aware of both Enlightenments than Buddhists are. I guess it is the result of conceit of the latter ones - unjustified pride of being on the side of the better teachings, just on basis of them being more popular.


That Samsara is our home and is amazing and anyone wanting to escape it has mistaken their desire for vacation with need for liberation?
Yeah, for sure, I am spiritually already an adult.
Liberation/relief is itself ultimately a fetter. It is to be seen through and become dispassionate for. Of course that doesn't mean person should remain unliberated. Desiring liberation is preventing it and in more ways people think it ever could.


Now not sure if previous answer makes sense vs what you asked... thought you asked about like Truth, less wouldn't satisfy you

Questions when they are not defined in accordance with natures of things they relate to can demand to be clarified in terms of if they are true or false. If not defined correctly it might be they are both true and false and thusly they should be contemplated until you define your questions better. And yet even having high certainty one should still contemplate questions as if they were both true and false because ignorance is easy to creep in otherwise.

The more important and pragmatic thing than answering boolean questions is making mind not as restless when faced with such questions and with it allow oneself time to carefully analyze all facts and even when making conclusions re-analyze them and not cling to previous answers. If you cling to your truth/falsehood and facts which lower certainty arise it causes dukkha. Not only dukkha but it disallows getting both valid answers and valid questions. Also things can seem to be opposite to conclusions before analyzing them and then confirm certainty - often increase certainty in answers to some questions while adding uncertainty in others - again not being clearheaded about nature of your answers can disallow to build right kind of certainty just because things which can affect things mind clings to are immediately rejected.

In any way imho declaring things as true or false should not be taken lightly and mind ready to re-evaluate its conclusions on moment's notice. If thinking caused dukkha then fix thinking and figure out how to do it even better so its pleasant to process data.

BTW. Here I gave the same answer few time with different words and it is the same as in previous post. Dropping false things quickly is just mind with dukkha way to optimize what it thinks about seeing thinking as precious resource because not a lot of it can be performed. Optimize how brains do thinking and desire to have tangible answers will cease. Now it might seem I have pretty high confidence level in dharma - high confidence is not an issue, trying to force it without much valid insights and clinging to having it no matter what as to ignore blunders mind does to keep itself certain is an issue. Also a fetter and one which is hardest to overcome completely - in fact it always demand treating it as not-yet removed.

How do you sense your own hardware?

Is this something you could always do?

So you can visualize the structure of your own hardware & in doing so, reconfigure it?

Do you simply look for markers?

How much control do you have over this process?

My own worldview doesn't disagree with this, necessarily, as it is not something I have thought about in depth; however, I think it may prove to be a challenge to my worldview. I operate more on the intuition that the mind shapes the brain, rather than that the brain shapes the mind - though neither way, 100%. In this way, I don't see reconfiguration of literal neurons as a logical way to truly improve the mind as a cognitive or a priori 'structure'. Maybe it is consistent with my worldview, if you consider the brain as a boundary algebra of the mind, like Venn Diagrams or George Spencer Brown's Laws of Form.

This would make sense if you believe what you might call a metaphysical 'superstition' that the universe has a structure very similar to a brain and is a boundary algebra.

Ni Nurta

I call my method as "touch visualization" - basics can be found in https://www.scribd.com/document/56072917/New-Energy-Ways-NEW-Manual
From what I remember from two decades ago it was about some energy but it is really about improving connections between consciousnesses to pass visualized touch. I guess the name "touch visualization" was from there but it might be how I called that.

To sense something in your mind you need to have exchanges with it - in this case touch it.
The what and how you touch affects the results. To simplify it in my mind I think of "qualities" eg. 2nd jhana has very specific blend of qualities of piti and sukha and touching part of mind with this quality makes it shift to 2nd jhana. This is useless simplification but simple techniques can be used to get hang of it.

Imho good practice target is you hand. First meditate on hand to really touch all parts of it, be able to move your awareness through each finger and physical detail of it feeling pressure moving along with your awareness until this feels totally natural. The awareness can be thought of being able to touch your hand - you experience it as pressure - touch.

Inducing jhana - it is about touching hand with jhana. It might not be always so straightforward as to just touch hand with jhanic awareness. For one you need to have your awareness have given jhana and it needs to not be overpowered by hands current experience. What worked for me was assuming this: jhana is already there in my hand and I just need to find other experience of hand than is jhanic. At this stage it is imho best to forego specific details about 2nd jhana and just try to find any jhanic experience of hand. This is because jhana-to-jhana shifts are way easier than non-jhana to any jhana and non-jhana to specific higher jhana are the hardest. Therefore when you find 'jhanic' experience the 2nd jhana experience will be easier to nail down.

So you touch hand with visualized touch and if its distinctly non-jhanic (read normal feeling) then you shifts your focus a little in some direction trying to find the jhanic experience. Not trying to make current non-jhanic experience become jhanic but find different experience of hand which is jhanic.


Nope.
I mean basics of visualized touch are pretty straightforward but it requires going through your whole body to make it sensitive and respond to visualized touch.
Inducing specific qualities like jhanas is more nuanced as I described. It gets much easier from the kind of 'no mind' states where you do not have 'normal' body experiences. It is more complicated... but also it is all touchy feely method so while complicated it is just something to have fun discovering.


With right concentration and qualities and clear communication as to what structure it is possible to reconfigure structure in one swoop during the night - which is something I tested. I screwed my brain and had to work my way through to what resembles my 'normality' which I still didn't manage to fully do since 2020 when experiment took place. I am kinda more interested in my methods and models than my attainments so I lost them to prove the point to myself. No biggie though, insight I still had and having insight getting nice mind states is no issue

Otherwise small persistent corrections are best way forward mixed with other practices to steer mind on good tracks. Also there are many ways to approximate visualized experiences without making persistent changes and rely on brain self-optimizing itself. Like if you visualize given configuration in temporal fashion then eventually connections will be created and neurons will move if necessary for given configuration be more optimal to what you do.

There are touch qualities to ease applying these temporal configuration changes. It doesn't feel like something is moving inside your brain but more that signals go from place to place through other places. Repeats stimuli of this kind leads to reduction of intermediate steps. 


Qualities which arise when 'touching' part of mind can be thought of markers.
Of interest are any qualities of blockades - when you cannot continuously move through part of body which are of different types. Usually some kind of dullness but can also be aversion and even strong tastes which can at times be pleasant when you try to push though but still won't let you though. That NEW pdf describes these.

Otherwise other types of markers if you will are just normal qualities which arise. For example all nanas have specific qualities. It isn't that different to normal vipassana/noting which is itself different way to 'touch' experiences.


Moving neurons?
If my concentration is stellar it feels real-time. They kinda cannot move but if they disconnect which causes strange click-like sensations they then can move very slowly and then when they settle it feels like they connect. No need to do it in real time though. Clear instructions is what seems to do the job.

This is what seems like single neuron moving.
If that sounds totally fake - I am not sure it isn't. I certainly have skills to visualize all these effects.

The only hint of realness is permanence of effects of such operations. If you move neuron which you feel communicate something between parts of mind then this communication won't happen. It will also feel much more significant than merely attempting to suppress activity on said neuron/node.


Imho mind is an emergent phenomena from structure. It doesn't need to be only physical though.

The effort in the practice is not willy-willy reconfiguring neurons but discovering mind and improving it. Same as any practice really and imho other meditation practices are still very useful. Some aspects of them can be skipped and/or not relied on for everything. Like for example at 3rd path rather than going through bazillion fruitions handling found issues one by one as they arise.


Imho visualized touch is compatible with the universe.